Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
After a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a newly built bridge across Lake Champlain was officially opened to traffic on November 7, 2011. The Lake Champlain Bridge connects Crown Point, New York, with Chimney Point, Vermont. This structure replaced a bridge that had opened at that location in 1929 and was demolished in 2009. It took only about... Continue Reading →
September 22, 1986 The Alex Fraser Bridge was officially opened in Canada. This cable-stayed bridge carries British Columbia Highway 91 over the Fraser River and connects the cities of Richmond and New Westminster with the community of North Delta in the metropolitan region of Vancouver, British Columbia. The northern end of the bridge is on Annacis... Continue Reading →
As a young engineer, Victor M. Mendez wasted little time deciding what to focus on in his career. “Thinking back, I migrated to transportation very early,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post in 2012. “I remember how satisfying it was to be able to say I helped design and construct a road... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1831 Automotive pioneer Siegfried Samuel Marcus was born in the town of Malchin in the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, which is now part of the Federal Republic of Germany. By the mid-1850s, Marcus had moved to Vienna and worked in that city as a manufacturer of scientific instruments until his death in 1898.... Continue Reading →
September 17, 1914 Ernest Lloyd Janney was anything but a tourist when he journeyed from his native Canada to visit Marblehead, Massachusetts, on September 17, 1914. He visited that town on the northeastern Massachusetts coast on behalf of his country’s government for another purpose, and that was to make a purchase -- and a historic... Continue Reading →
Michael J. Hoffmann of Minnesota served as president of the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) in 1946, in an era when both that association and the United States were moving further away from the World War II years and grappling with the major peacetime challenges facing the nation’s highways. In two key benchmarks... Continue Reading →
Robert Files Lopez was born in the city of Davenport, Iowa, on March 31, 1857. He was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1874 and made history in 1879 as the first Hispanic American to graduate from that institution. Lopez’s subsequent naval career included serving as an ensign aboard the USS Thetis when that... Continue Reading →
September 14, 1974 Brazil’s first underground rapid transit system made its public debut when regular service began on a 4.3-mile (6.9-kilometer)-long section of the São Paulo Metrô between the Jabaquara and Vila Mariana stations on the North-South Line (the present-day Blue Line). Those taking part in the formal inauguration of this system included Miguel Colasuonno, who... Continue Reading →
September 11, 2001 The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, resulted in the tragic deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals in the vicinity of New York City’s World Trade Center; the Pentagon in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area; and –where a hijacked airplane went down after passengers sought to overcome the terrorists... Continue Reading →
September 10, 1962 Construction began on twin tunnels in the city and unitary authority area of Newport in southern Wales. These tunnels were built to carry M4 of the United Kingdom (UK) motorway network under Brynglas Hill in that region of Wales. Sir Owen Williams, the prolific English engineer and architect, was in charge of... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 